Forever Yours.

It is a strange feeling, to notice how things you created years ago are still present. To notice how everything is connected, in a way. To feel those feelings you felt years ago. To see the images your mind produced years ago, vivid as if they had just been created.

And to see how much you forget about those things.

A few weeks ago, when I made a weak attempt to sort those sheets of paper piling up in cupboards and drawers, my eyes fell upon the bottom of a printed sheet of paper. I read a few lines, amazed, shocked, and confused, and wondered who wrote that, because it had something very psycho about it. Especially about the last bit of the page:

“Moïra? What are you doing here, at this time? It’s the death of the night.”
“I’m sorry, master” he heard, almost whispering. “I… I just thought it might interest you… Maybe… I’m sorry for waking you up…” She sounded a bit addled.
“What’s wrong with you, honey?”
“Oh… nothing, master.” Her voice faded with every single word she spoke. “I’m only dying…”

It wasn’t until I finally looked at the top of the page that I realized the text was written by me, and by nobody else. It was the fragment of a story I started in 2005, a story I left unfinished, like so many of my works, because I got either bored by it or because my mind was occupied with other things, other stories at the time. A story I started in 2005. A story I had almost forgotten about. And the only thing I held in my hands a few weeks ago was one page of it, only a fragment. When I sat on my floor that day, all those things came back to me again. I suddenly had the vague idea what my intentions were when I wrote it, what kind of experiment that had been. I recalled those feelings that accompanied the writing process, what the main character was like, what one of the minor characters was like. In my mind, the end of this story rushed by – the end I’ve never written. I had a vague idea about the plot, about the surroundings, about the background. It all came back, simply because I read a fragment of it.

During the last weeks, when I was very busy, I forgot about it again. Just now, drinking tea, I suddenly recalled it and searched for that fragment. But it was only a fragment.

I searched my computer for the original file and found it, buried somewhere deep in the chaos of my external hard drive where nobody would have ever found it, the way so many of my stories are buried somewhere nobody can find them because I strongly object people reading my old “works”. And then, I read it.

9 pages, 3 years old, old memories coming up, intentions, characters. Words. The idea of it.

Of course, reading this, I was critical again, but not only in the negative sense. Considering that it was written three years ago, the language I used there was considerably good and, also, the way the story developed isn’t too bad, either. Considering that it was three years ago. Considering that I still cannot stick to storylines or plots. And of course, the idea behind it. However, the story is an unfinished piece of mine, and if looked after again, needs to be rewritten, but the general idea of it is just what I like. What I liked back then and what I still like.

Currently, I’m considering rewriting it. Not only because it’s interesting, but also because it woke something deep inside me I cannot quite explain. It’s hard to explain such things to people who do not write. I’ve found quite a few fragments of stories I wrote back then – even longer than “back then”. Things I wrote when I was 11, 12, 13. I haven’t read them when I found them, though; I will, perhaps, when I find enough time for it. Just to see how creative I was back then. To see if anything comes back.

Perhaps that one caught my interest because it was an experiment of mine. Because it wasn’t a simple story, a simple piece of writing following my classical style at that time, but because it is actually something with an intention behind. With an effect I want to produce on the reader. Perhaps it caught my interest because it is a challenge to me.

And because it is much closer to what I prefer to write nowadays than to what I preferred to write back then.

“Sieben”, the story I started a few years ago, was also one of those experiments. I gave it up for a few years and finished it for Literature a while ago. There, too, I wanted to create a certain effect on the reader.

As far as I remember at the moment, there are only few of those experiments. I think “Sieben” and “Light of Darkness” – which is the one I found now – are the most important, if not the only ones. There is a difference between my experiments and other stories. In those experiments, I really try to convey a certain feeling, I want to produce a certain effect. Something new, something different from my other stories, in which I simply write in my style which has, in fact, shifted a lot in favour of those “experiments”.

However, those experiments are different and they always present a challenge to me.

I am not good enough a writer to succeed in those “experiments” – in my opinion, I have utterly failed in “Sieben”, and I am not sure whether “Light of Darkness” will do any better. I am not good enough for what I want to do. But in the end, it doesn’t matter because there will hardly be anyone reading them. (Of course, it is different with “Sieben”, as my whole Literature course will be able to read it.)

In that regard, I’ve often asked myself: Why do I write? What for, if nobody cares to read it anyway? What for, if I often destroy what I’ve written simply because I have expectations which are too high for my abilities?

I don’t write for people. Of course, when I was little, I’ve always dreamed of doing that as a profession. Writing. Being an author. But that was long ago. Now, I am 18 and reasonable enough to know that my works are not good enough for the public. I do not write for people. I write for me.

Because writing means so much more than just writing. Writing is a process you have to put your heart into, otherwise your work lacks that something extra that should fascinate people and make them read it. Writing is a process you put a piece of your soul into. Into every single piece you write, you put something of you. Every single written piece contains something of you, something that makes it special, something that makes it special also for you. Writing – literary, not scientific writing – is not a simple intellectual process; writing actually comes from your soul. You’re able to talk to yourself through writing, you’re able to express those words you’ve never dare to utter aloud.

That’s why I don’t write for people. I do appreciate it if people comment on my written pieces, if people have constructive criticism. And I also appreciate it if people like it. But this cannot be the motivation for writing, not for me. That’s why I’d never be able to do it as a profession. First, I’m not good enough. Second, you hardly earn any money with it. And third, I cannot write for people, I cannot write for an audience; I cannot write under pressure. I cannot write because I have to, because writing comes either on its own – or it doesn’t. It’s no use pushing it, because it’ll never have quite the same effect as when the motivation to write the piece can be found in itself.

But if I wrote for people, for an audience, I’d never be able to produce a thing, because my readership is restricted to only a few people who are interested in what I write, and I can probably count those with one hand. Perhaps one hand and a few fingers of the other hand, depending on the story, but I’m sure it’s obvious what I’m getting at.

It’s hard to rewrite old things. I did that a while ago with another story, but I didn’t finish the second attempt, either, simply because it would have meant too much planning and too many things I didn’t want to write. However, I’m planning to finish it one day, because it’s actually a story I’ve liked very much. Although now, with the second attempt, it has changed a lot. Actually, thinking about it, it is another of those experiments. Yes, in fact it is. Because there’s something I want people to notice at the very end, in the very last sentence. I’ve written the ending, I’ve written the beginning. But there is a story in between I have to write. I’m trying that for more than a year now, and I never make any progress.

Things you created in such a way, like things you actually write, never leave you. Those characters will always stay with you, somewhere. The stories will always be a part of you, even if you don’t remember. Because in every work, there is a piece of your soul, hidden somewhere, where nobody can find it.

Those things will always be yours.

Or, to be more precisely, in some cases you will always be theirs.